


[•••] ellipsis

by Q (ANONiM0USE)



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aromantic, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Mikey Hamato, Bad Parenting, Banshees, Character Turned Into a Ghost, DC Abridged Universe, F/M, Families of Choice, Family Dynamics, Female Character of Color, Gen, Geniuses, Grim Reapers, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Internalized Acephobia, Major Character Undeath, Major Original Character(s), Missing Persons, Missions Gone Wrong, Moresomes, Multi, Multiple Personalities, Murder Mystery, New York City, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Person of Color April O'Neill, Personification of Death, Platonic BDSM, Queer Themes, Queerplatonic Relationships, Secret Identity, Soul Bond, Splinter is a bad dad, Suicide Attempt, Threesome - F/M/M, Vigilantism, bdsm relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 10:05:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14054565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANONiM0USE/pseuds/Q
Summary: A murdered grim reaper, a botched suicide attempt and a banshee that wants to save lives not foretell their ending come together with a control freak, a vigilante with a god complex and a hero with anger issues come together to save their home while simultaneously trying to bring back the friend who vanished without a trace two years ago.





	1. what comes after?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All the sky is falling down, falling down.  
> All the sky is falling down, my sad lady.  
> Build him up with bricks and thoughts, books and thoughts, lots and lots.  
> Build him up lots and lots, my sad lady.  
> -set to London Bridge

The sun is rising when he takes that first step into eternity.

(Hopefully, the stairs wherever he'd end up wouldn't have graffiti tags and pigeon crap written on its face)

It's become too much.

And not enough.

List off the pros and cons, Don always said.

Pros.

1\. He'd stop feeling like a runover piece of pizza that no one wanted.  
2\. He'd wouldn't be so tired.  
3\. His dad couldn't yell at him if he was six feet under.  
4\. Ditto to Leo telling him he was a disappointment.  
5\. He wouldn't have to explain to Mr. Stockman that as much as he enjoyed his class, writing a paper made him feel even more dead inside. Like how was that possible?  
6\. No one could ask him if he were okay beyond the grave. Hopefully.

Con(s).

1\. How would his brothers react?

If they interrupted him, he wasn't sure if he could have the strength of mind to go through with it and he'd go through another cycle of being numb and sorta okay to crashing down into _please somebody, anybody, run me down with the nearest truck i need to feel alive, please_ territory.

And he knew his brothers well.

They'd be so _guilty_. Especially Leo.

(But he deserved to be, hissed that angry spiteful little voice)

They'd never understand. There were two (2) possible reactions that they'd have.

1.  Everything's all _my_  fault, Mikey!111!!!! OMG, I should've guessed this was the case based on [insert mega long, ultra tedious, definition + psychological term that he wouldn't learn until next year]! Why didn't you tell us?! _yelling intensifies_  
2\. _yelling inte **nsifies**_  Why didn't you tell us?!!!1!!! You were probably pretending, weren't you? Isn't it because of [insert mega long, ultra tedious, definition + psychological term that he wouldn't learn until next year]? It's just disrespectful to Father to make so much trouble.

In the end... it wasn't worth it.

He walked to the edge of the roof, not hearing the pounding of footsteps trying to stop him over the pounding of his own heart.

Not until he turned around to see the sun and instead saw his brother, Donnie and _his sleep deprivation and his hand reaching out for his and everything he represents_  and he wants to step forward.

He wants to step forward.

"Mikey, please," Donnie pleaded.

When they were kids, they'd promised-

"B team forever, remember?"

When they were kids, he'd promise-

"I'll always be here."

But he wasn't.

He was there physically but gone.

When he said, "Mikey, we'll fix this! Just step down!"

He wanted to.

So he obeyed.  
  
○

The sun is up before she is.

It's who she is as a person without a name.

They'd offered her names.

 _Valerie, Vicky, Ursula, Uriel, etcetera, etcetera, they didn't take any of her suggestions to heart anyway,_  not that they fit.

Not like her suit.

Clean, crisp, black and white, simple to counteract the messy, chaotic, grey-lined nature of death.

Dancing her index along the line of her desk, she picks up her pocketwatch and examines its handless face carefully for the name that had awoken her.

"Michelangelo Hamato. Michelangelo Hamato. Michelangelo Hamato. Heed the call of the reaper and come -"

She choked.

_A blade, the basement, Sunshine, thirteen, snakeskin oatmeal cupcake._

_-red on her shaking palms and silver glinting above her._

_Fear-_

_roy be pleased to oranges-_

She shuddered as the sudden onslaught of images and mishmash of unfamiliar voices cut off and she found herself on the cherrywood floor.

She really ought to sweep.

She really ought to-

Shaking off the compulsion to avoid going after the rogue soul, she forced herself to focus on standing up.

Clutching the dresser, she struggles to her feet.

"Clockwork password: ~~_nevermore_~~."

The gears in her pocketwatch pause for a second before they begin to rise up obediently.

"Lead me to the rogue soul known as Michelangelo Hamato. I wish to offer an alternative."

The gears don't care for her reasons, of course but if Aridan asked, this way she could have vocal evidence.

They flash green thrice with a pause between the fourth flash before a single blink followed by a fifth final flash before they dash off as she tugs on her cloak and follows after them.

/D|O}N\N|I\E》

Hindsight was always going to be 20/20.

The sun watched from the sky as his brother fell, its burning pupil unwavering as the bricks crumbled.

He'd been right there.

Right there, bags under his normally bright blue eyes nearly overshadowing his maelstrom of freckles.

Right _there_ , looking so tired and lost.

Right there, reaching for his hand.

Then it all came crashing down as the old bricks of the subway station suddenly gave way with Mikey still on top.

It had happened so fast.

One moment, he's trying to talk his twin brother out of killing himself _he should've gotten here faster_  and the next moment his brother is on the pavement, his skull caved in and _it was all his fault_  he was dead.

Then the screaming started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \\\tag yourself from the description  
> // song suggestions:  
> Ghost (Lowrend Remix) - Tillian   
> https://open.spotify.com/track/0z6iUdVCO3Kom69jNG87HJ?si=pGrXfwcoTRWZOhLTvGAYwQ  
> |Leave a comment or kudos!|


	2. canary crying?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pain,pain,suffering, Spanish cuss woes, and a cue to save the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The serious chapters will eventually change summaries but the lighter ones will be more sarcastic

∆ _MICHELANGLO_ ∆

He could taste the approach of death on his tongue like richly dark chocolate and smoke as it was heralded by this almost entrancing lullaby.

But he just couldn't get up.

Something - or someone - was holding him down and preventing him from leaving.

"... Mikey, I'm so, so, sorry," someone sobbed as a sharp throbbing pain began to sneak up on the back of his head.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

He couldn't move.

But he was in too much pain to be dead.

It was like he'd swallowed a bag of glass, had the shit kicked out of him and then gotten on the Superman.

There was even glass in his throat.  
  
He forced his eyes open and grimaced as the urge to scream warred with the urge to stay still as smoky wraiths with skeletal hands restrained him.

 _-you are needed_   _you are wanted_   _you are the chosen_   _you are needed_   _you are necessary_

It was eerily similar to having someone else think for you.

He didn't know how long he lay there, listening to something else think for him as someone else cried for him, until a pair of legs approached him.

"... Why do you restrain this spirit from his eternal rest?," a woman's  voice demands but before he can answer the "thoughts" interrupt,

 _needed_   _necessary_   _devouring_   _stopped_   _want_  c _hoose him_   _needed_   _we want this one_

"So who's going to train him? The last one immediately got himself shot because he wouldn't listen to Katya."

Cat yeah?, he wondered.

_you._

"What? Whoa, whoa, I've already got a new banshee to deal with. I'm not about to hero-train anybody on top of that."

_necessary._

"What's in it for me, huh? The other reaper are way too uppity to -"

 _your memories._   _who you were, they both know_   _who you will be is tied to them_   _angel_   _ghoul_   _or something more_

"Ugh... I hope you know what you're all doing."

_we know all_

"Sure you do," the girl mocks.

_we will leave this one to you._

The weight on his chest dissipates and he takes in a shuddering breath in reflex.

1.  That sucked.  
2\. _ow_  
3\. What did any of that mean?

"So, Michelangelo Hamato. Your cause of death was accident since the foundation of that old clock tower was really shaky but you would've jumped of your own free will in a couple of months anyways... Huh. That was really morbid of me. Sorry... reciting my paperwork to a person lets me think better. So, anyway,"

She kneels down and lets him take a good look at her hauntingly familiar face -  
1\. the onyx eyes, the matching ink black ringlets moving like she's underwater  
2\. rice paper pale skin and the  
3\. manic energy lurking just beneath the surface: ready for a fight or an explosion  equals  
4\. He knows her. Somehow. Sue him if his memory's a little fuzzy.  
before continuing,

"Do you want to save the world with me?"

○

* _cue the jazz hands_ *

The boy... Didn't not look familiar but also there wasn't the urge to rekindle any emotional connections.

He was cute, in that windswept New York fusion between Asian boy band and blonde surfer.

If he were a flavor, he'd be peach lemonade...

And thus came the weird part of her job.

Was admiring a dead person if you yourself were dead necrophilia? Or is it just admiration?

Being that she hadn't even explained what happened to his friend yet, it was an issue that she could thankfully put on the back burner.

The really awkward part - especially with jumpers - was putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.

It would be literal torture if she made him walk around like that.

Not to mention how much paperwork she'd have to do if he became a ghoul.

"Hold still."

Kneeling down, carefully avoiding the leaking body fluid, she does her best to think of humanity in their most... General state.

Humanity's a melting pot on every level.

Good and evil, light and dark... A true human's nature was true instinct but this one...

Chaotic.

His atman lazily gazes up at her, winding its way through her chest as she tries to read its nature.

... Good?

Neutral, sweetheart, it winked silently before vanishing.

What motivated you?

Wants. Friends. Good feelings.

Edgelord, she silently sighed as she put him together and let him go unconscious as his body began to rebuild itself.

Scratching her head lazily as she called up her bike and adjusted the other unconscious kid to make room for Goldilocks, she wondered how exactly someone became a banshee.

Was it like becoming a reaper?

It couldn't have been very pleasant - especially the way he'd stared up at her with copper red eyes, looking like he'd already screamed himself hoarse, before she'd put him to sleep.

He looked like he needed it and if her suspicions were correct, she needed time to put her own thoughts together before she even attempted to put his to rest.

/D|O}N\N|I\E》

He dreamed of things that didn't make any sense.

Like a black cloud of sorrow and loss and ache floating down, down, down, soft and airy, to look at him with endlessly avid eyes.

Of it leaning forward towards his frozen shellshocked form, holding him captive in a strange embrace.

Of cold.

Of it seeping so deeply into him, past his core, maybe even past his soul, ripping into him and finding all of his mistakes and killing him-

Until all he can do is scream.

Until a girl appears out of nowhere, following what seems to be a set of glowing clock gears, and looks at him nonchalantly...Shaking her head once before she knocks him out.

The dream turns into Mikey falling, Mikey screaming, his body dancing bonelessly like he's been electrocuted.

Then the dream turns to Valkyrie, his best friend ~~and self-proclaimed "illegal doctor backslash very legal vigilante"~~ , and the last time he saw her.

She was angry, no, livid - her anger leaking out into the air like frost - and it was enough of a shock to everyone that she was like that that they'd broken their silent code.

_Keep each other safe._

But in the dream, he followed after her.

Watching as the captive audience to his own imagination's explanation for her disappearance.

 _click-clack_ , her boots beckoned him to follow her as she walked down the dark New York streets, still busy enough with reputable night walkers that she could've been reasonably safe but with just enough of the other kind and their customers that her safety wasn't guaranteed.

And she wore her lips red. Dark red, crimson, sin - it didn't matter as long as it suited her mood and it never mattered that she was much younger than all those _pendejos_ * when they tried to talk to her.

He never minded when she taught him to curse, though he'd never found a use for them before she vanished.

 _click-clack_ , her boots taunted as she waited for the bus, her foot tapping out whatever beat she had in her headphones as she swiped at her eyes, not seeing his worst fear creeping up behind her.

 _clack-cla k_ , his faceless spectre mocks as he reaches for her, comically large knife in hand-

"Wake up!," a voice demands.

And he's grateful that his canary is still screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *asshole/motherfucker


	3. mi casa no casa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casey: *edge*  
> Mikey: *shook*  
> Donnie: *error*  
> Previously unnamed character: *named*
> 
> (Light and dialogue-heavy chapter. Slightly violent in the beginning but vague)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *dude  
> sister*
> 
> I'm not personally latinx so what words/sayings I use incorrectly, I would appreciate corrections in the comments since I'm working off what I remember in high school Spanish 1 + 2, asking my Hispanic friends and Google Translate.

✘CASEY✘

Somewhere, somehow, one of the Lost Kids had finally grown up.

Dropping off his perch on the roof, he easily knocks aside one of the gang members as Raph and Red start to go after the big _chábon_ *.

It rang out in the silence in his ear, instead of the mouthing off his * _hermana_  did to ease the weight of their work off, Red only confirmed her location nothing more.

It unsteadied him enough that he caught a glancing blow from one dude's busted up wooden plank (not that he was judging, not everyone was lucky enough to have tw- a genius making them weapons).

"Casey," Red hissed into the mike-

_-I know who got the beauty in this family, but did I really deserve the brains too?_

\- as he batted away another goon with much more ferocity than he needed.

Raph and Red, when all was said and done, looked at the injured and unconscious and at him then at each other and called it a night.

Raph knew what he was doing down here but April had long since been kept in the dark.

She didn't know her predecessor and all she was here for was her father.

It wouldn't make much sense to her why he was doing this.

"Tell me what I want to know and you might keep a couple of fingers."

It only made sense to them.

∆ _MICHELANGLO_ ∆

His bed was much.. _Comfier?_  Than he'd remembered it to be, though the fact that he'd   
even been able to fall asleep was a miracle in and of itself.

He pauses in getting up as yelling drifts over from the other room.

"Look, I could have left the both of you there and not shown up to explain until someone close to you figured out what you were!"

"He could have had a concussion!"

He was at least 98% sure that that didn't matter anymore.

"I don't think that you're understanding the situation here-"

"Then explain it to me!"

"You literally just woke up! At least-"

"Explain it to me!"

"Would you just-"

"Explain."

One of those voices was definitely Donnie and the second voice seemed familiar but he didn't want to draw attention to himself quite yet.

Something about his head and _the fact that he wasn't supposed to be alive he didn't want to-_  niggled at his brain.

"... Fine! You want an explanation? Check your heartbeat!"

"What are you-"

Donnie pauses, chokes,

"I don't-"

"Have one? Newsflash, you ass, you and Suicide Side Up are very much dead."

Despite the situation, he snorted (loudly) and the girl continued in her irritation,

"You got kissed by a banshee and obviously Blondie jumped off a damn building. The reason you aren't dead is because you're... Relatively pure, I guess and also a higher power wants you to save the world."

She'd heard him and Donnie was probably making his 'can not compute' expression so when she wanders into the elegantly decorated _living room?_ , he meets her eyes head on.

"So, Windows Error over there seems to not be doing so well. Do you have any questions, kid?"

"Aren't you the same age as us?," he asked as he looked away from the abyss to focus on the bouquet of pink and yellow roses that were out of place in the modernist color palette.

"Could be. I'm dead too."

She shrugged at his shocked stare.

"I guide dead souls as a way to stave off insanity. Seems like I'm pretty dead, no?"

"You don't know?"

"Reapers or Grim, depends on who you ask, don't get very many answers. So unfortunately, whenever that one -" She gestures wildly at the other room where Donnie had started to make a strange whining noise _or was that him??_  before continuing, "Finishes rebooting, I guess... I won't be able to give definitive answers. I don't have an exact answer for what you are yet either."

"So.." He paused. "You, ah,"

He kind of needed a name from her.

Mentally he had already started to mix her up with...

"Oí, only one person reboots at once!"

She snapped in his face brusquely.

"Sorry, sorry! What's your name?"

She blinks.

Once.

Twice.

"... Sadly enough, I really don't know that either."

The silence stretches out and she drums her fingers against her cheek, thinking aloud and breaking the silence with,

"But. Good enough time to let Aridan know that I'm never introducing myself as _Princesa_  in this life or the next. What are missing people called again?"

Donnie was apparently done "rebooting" because he answers quickly, walking into the room,

"Jane or John Doe."

"Huh. Thanks, Google Chrome. I'm def not a Jane. How about J.D.? JD Wolf with a 'e' feels nice."

"JD? My name is Donatello."

He can't bring himself to say his own.

"See, I didn't know that. Not that I'd have cared but good info to start with, y'know?"

"Great," Donnie said icily.

"Glad to know that after rebooting you're even crankier, Donatello."

There was definitely something about JD that felt familiar but that snarky easy grin was Valkyrie's through and through.

"... I don't have enough energy for this."

"Well, there's coffee and vodka on the kitchen table."

Both he and Donnie look at J.D. in aghast shock with a flat and simultaneous:

"What."

"There's coffee on the table," she amended with a shrug.

"Apparently my friend broke into my house again."

"We're.. We're underage!," Donnie sputtered in response to her nonchalant attitude and J.D. raised any eyebrow.

"Do I need to remind you that you're dead? Alcohol does nothing but taste gross and knock you out for thirty minutes."

"So why offer both?"

J.D. ignores Donnie and instead focuses on him with wary eyes, looking him up and down silently as he becomes aware of the fact that his hands had begun to shake.

"Right. You take care of yourself, Donnie boy. I'm going to walk Sunshine here to the washroom."

Donnie says something and he shudders as the door's _crack_  reminds him of his head against..

"Whoa, whoa, look at me. Deep breath in for 4. 1. 2... 3. 4.. Great! Hold for 3. Exhale for 7."

She holds his suddenly feverish cheeks between cool palms and her gaze bores into his.

"Are you still in shock?"

"Wha- no! I'm, I'm fine!"

She lifts an eyebrow at him in disbelief.

"You wouldn't be fine if you were out of shock. You tried to kill yourself and you're still unsure as to whether or not..."

She trails off.

"I regret it?," he guessed.

She nodded once.

"I guess... I don't know, dude. It'd just been building for so long and then to have finally grown the balls to jump and then dying because of something out of my hands."

"It's frustrating, isn't it?"

Surprisingly:

"Yes."

She turns her head to the door and calls Donnie out.

"If you're down pussyfooting around your brother... Whose name I never got, by the way."

"Mikey," he introduced himself and she poked his palm once instead of shaking his outstretched hand.

Weird.

"Right, Goldilocks. I've got someone that I need to show you to."

"Is it a therapist?," he says, praying that it isn't despite hoping that it is as he avoids Donnie's gaze.

He doesn't want to answer any questions right now _or ever_.

J.D. thinks about it for a second.

"Eh. He's qualified? He's more likely to tell you ways to cope that society looks down on that  prescribe you anything, to be honest."

"I'm not appreciating that question mark," Donnie interjects.

"You don't appreciate a lot of things," she retorts before adding, "Besides. We don't have therapists down here."

He accidentally meets Donnie's eyes _and oh no, he's guilty and tired and he can't deal with it no no no_ -

"Where's here?," he ignores his internal screaming with external confusion.

Which thankfully Donnie mirrors.

_he isn't stupid for once_

J.D. winks as she points to the window that he's just noticed depicts a much darker evening scene despite it reading 8 o'clock on the clock.

"Welcome to Dux, the New Yorkian's version of Limbo."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song suggestions: blood//water by grandson
> 
> X
> 
> Who else is really hyped for April O'Neill to be a person of color? Just... Ahhh!
> 
> Moving on though, I feel like I'm going to have a lot of fun with both Casey and Mikey. And fair warning, I may experiment with more graphically violent scenes and I go in depth with mental health. ps: check the tags.


End file.
